


In The Name of Principle

by bhaer



Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types, Les Misérables - Victor Hugo
Genre: Alcohol, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, F/F, Feminist Themes, Pro-Choice Activism, References to Drug Use, Rule 63
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-26
Updated: 2013-06-26
Packaged: 2017-12-16 05:28:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,520
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/858349
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bhaer/pseuds/bhaer
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A modern retelling of Grantaire's failure at the Barriere du Maine.</p>
            </blockquote>





	In The Name of Principle

**Author's Note:**

> So, you may recognize this because there was a version of it up earlier! I decided there were a ton of problems with said version, took it done, rewrote significant sections, edited the fuck out of it, and here we are. This is the new and improved story.

> _"You'll go out and preach republicanism, rouse up the halfhearted in the name of principle?"_
> 
> _"Why shouldn't I?"_
> 
> _"Would you be any good at it?"_
> 
> _"I'd quite like to try," said Grantaire._
> 
> _"But you don't believe in anything?"_
> 
> _"I believe in you."_

                   —Victor Hugo,  _Les Miserables_

* * *

****

“It’s as if she doesn’t even  _care_  about the GOP’s war on women,” Matilda Enjolras cried, articulating her frustration with wild gesticulations. Across the table, Emily Combeferre nodded. If she was bored or disinterested, she didn’t show it. Her calm gray eyes followed Matilda’s every jerking movement with cool sympathy. 

“I’m sorry if Grantaire wasn’t particularly helpful. Sam has yoga with her and suggested that she might have an interest in reproductive rights,” Emily said. In response, Mattie upended several sugar packets into her macchiato.

“That’s the infuriating thing. She does yoga, and jiu jitsu, and she rides horses, and she bartends at the awful little dive behind the college, and she’s writing some five hundred-page thesis about ancient Greek lesbians. Considering she does half of those things stoned and or drunk, she’s probably a genius. And she can’t even make a fucking sign for a good cause,” Mattie groaned.

Emily pushed the macchiato cup closer to Mattie, who drowned her further complaints in a gulp of caffeinated goodness.

“Grantaire seemed enthusiastic at the start. She found a bunch of slogans used by pro-choice protesters pre-Roe vs. Wade and was going to replicate them,” Emily mused.

“How cool would that have been? It would have aligned us with the women’s movement of our mothers and given us a real sense of legitimacy. Like we aren’t bored college kids,” Mattie said.

 “It would have been nice,” Emily gently agreed. She had finished her own green tea ages ago and instead fiddled with the empty teabag wrapper with thin, precise hands not used to being idle. 

Mattie huffed but her icy blue eyes softened and she took a long sip of macchiato before saying anything else.

“I’m just upset. It’s like you said, she seemed like she really gave a shit for once and I thought, maybe, she’d change,” Mattie said.

“That’s a natural feeling. I’m a little hurt too,” Emily said, though her calm face betrayed no such emotion. Mattie, on the other hand, was chewing on her bottom lip with impressive force.

“I should confront her. Lilly-Anne paid a lot of money for those paints and the poster board and now they’re wasted,” Mattie said glumly.

“She should replace the paints,” Emily agreed.

“I hope she doesn’t come to the protest.”

There was silence. Some new hit by Taylor Swift played on the coffee shop loudspeakers and Mattie, miserably, contemplated having to find and speak to Grantaire.

“I have organic chemistry in ten minutes. Are you okay?” Emily asked softly. Emily, with her unassuming, kind face, always knew when Mattie was troubled. Mattie felt something unpleasant coil in the pit of her stomach. She didn’t feel okay, but she didn’t know what the feeling was. She considered the possibility that she was getting sick. Ginny  _had_ been complaining of a stomach bug the day before.

“I’ll be fine.  _You_  go off and find a cure for cancer and I’ll handle Grantaire,” Mattie said, forcing a smile. Emily looked puzzled, and pressed a cold hand to Mattie’s. She wasn’t buying the act for a second and Mattie squirmed under her penetrating gaze.

“I have a date with Sam tonight, so I can’t get dinner, but text me how it goes. I love you, Tildie.” Tildie was Mattie’s pet name, the one her mother had used. Emily knew it, of course. It was an occupational hazard of having a best friend who's known you since before you could walk. The gesture warmed Mattie, who leaned across the table to place a quick kiss on Emily’s cheek.

“I love you too. You kids have fun, and don’t stay out too late,” Mattie said in what she hoped was a bright, cheerful voice.

Emily rolled her eyes and affixed her floppy sunhat firmly on her head.

“Knowing Sam, we’ll never come back,” She cried dramatically, though she smiled affectionately as she said her girlfriend’s name.

Mattie waited until Emily was walking down the street to let her smile fade. The feeling in her stomach was back and for a moment Mattie wondered if she was cramping. It was a fluttery, painful feeling that came alive violently when she imagined finding Grantaire and slithered back into the depths of her intestines quietly when she imagined going home and starting her history paper.

_This is ridiculous_ , Mattie thought. Grantaire had fucked up and it was Mattie’s responsibility to make it right. She was nervous because, truth be told, she had set her hopes on Grantaire and Mattie wasn’t used to being let down. Emily and Sam spoiled her in that way.

Regardless, there was no reason to put off the exchange any longer. Mattie flung down a generous tip and sauntered off to find the Corinthe, hoping that if she walked fast enough, she could ignore the monster inside her.

 

* * *

 Mattie and Emily were third cousins who were accidently enrolled in the same baby ballet class. Emily’s mother had photographs of them together, chubby infants in pink leotards, their arms guided through the motions by their respective parents.

Emily quit ballet as soon as she could express herself fluently enough to do so. She grew out of her baby fat quickly and into a boney, awkward physique. She was always tripping over her legs and preferred to spend her time pursuing intellectual, as opposed to physical pursuits. For a three year old, this consisted of being read _Good Night Moon_ over and over again until Emily had the whole text memorized.

Mattie continued dancing until she was ten. Her lithe frame was perfectly suited for ballet and she certainly looked the part of a prima ballerina with her flowing golden curls and cherubic smile. She enjoyed it too.

The friendship might have ended when Emily quit dance, had their mutual Great-Aunt not died later that year. Both were pressed into somber black dresses and paraded in front of the open coffin. Emily cried like the child she was but Mattie only pressed her lips together gravely and comforted her cousin with surprising maturity for a four year old.

For some reason, that death brought the girls together and afterwards, they were inseparable. Mattie supported Emily as she attempted to play tennis, soccer and softball, and failed spectacularly at all of them. Mattie struggled with reading and discipline in the early grades and would have been stuffed full of Adderall had Emily not taught her the alphabet with patience.

They tried to share clothes except that Emily was always taller than Mattie.

Sam was Mattie’s bunkmate at an otherwise disastrous two weeks of summer camp. They were twelve and Emily had finally given up athletic pursuits for good. Mattie, sympathetic but itching for a friend who could play tag without sustaining serious injury, set off for sleep away camp. The details of that particular pre-adolescent trauma are unimportant. Mattie was sent home after two weeks with a bad poison ivy rash on her legs, a bad attitude, and a new friend.

Samantha Courfeyrac was everything Emily wasn’t. Where Emily preferred to spend her sleepovers looking for new galaxies out of her prized telescope, Sam would suggest spin-the-bottle. It was an uneasy friendship until high school and even then, didn’t solidify into something substantial until Mattie’s beloved mother died and her two closest friends were forced into closeness as they struggled to provide some comfort.

Somewhere along the way, they’d carved out a group for themselves. Mattie and Emily were the sort of gawkish girls that were pushed down a lot as children and ignored as teenagers. They somehow attracted a few other misfits with similar social ineptitude or similar political beliefs. Mattie had seemingly crawled out of baby ballet spouting Mary Wollstonecraft quotes and trying to crush the patriarchy with a chubby fist.

Among the mess of outcasts and outspoken feminists, there was Rosa Grantaire.

She’d wandered into the clique sometime in high school and never left. If Mattie strained, she could remember a time with Rosa and a time without Rosie but she couldn’t pinpoint the moment Rosa entered her life.

She announced that she preferred to be called by her surname soon after they all started college. The group was used to changes in name; Julie(t) Prouvaire had started the seeming trend. They accepted it, like they accepted Grantaire’s flights of depression, drunken speeches and occasional bought of vomiting on Sam’s favorite shoes.

It was what it was.

 

* * *

 

 

At night, the Corinthe bar was perhaps the most popular hangout for twenty-somethings in the area. It was Sam’s favorite haunt and though Mattie had stopped by a few times in the interest of maintaining a semi-functioning social life, she hadn’t seen the appeal. The taste of liquor sickened Mattie and loud music always brought on a migraine. She preferred quiet nights in with her friends.

Sam was more than willing to give up a night of dancing to bake cookies with Mattie, and Mattie felt obligated to go out dancing with Sam every so often in return. 

During the day, the Corinthe had a faded look. Hardly anyone lurked inside and those that did looked shady as hell much older than the nighttime clientele.

Mattie tried to look confident as she marched to the bar, trying to ascertain if Grantaire was working.

Sure enough, though her back was turned to Mattie, a short, heavy-set sort of girl with wiry black hair and a tattoo of some Greek letters on the back of her neck was washing out a glass and humming to herself. Mattie sat down at the bar, feeling awkward. This was Grantaire’s world, not hers. 

“Can I have a glass of water, please?” Mattie said in what she hoped was a commanding tone. Grantaire whipped around, curls flying, as if she knew Mattie’s voice from the first syllable.

“What are you doing here?” Grantaire asked breathlessly. Mattie sighed and took in the woman facing her. Grantaire wasn’t pretty by any means. Her nose had been broken too many times for that, but she had a certain charm with the way she moved that had enticed more than a few men. Her lips were thin and cracked and her eyes cloudy. Mattie noticed that Grantaire was wearing the same shirt she had the day before, a too-big black polo with a hole by the neck. A pink bra strap poked through one of the sleeves.

“I wanted to talk to you,” Mattie said. She noticed how the skin around Grantaire’s eyebrow ring was red and swollen. It was probably infected. She stifled an urge to lecture Grantaire about not letting drunken Riley Bahorels give body piercings but held her tongue.

“I’m at work,” Grantaire said stiffly.

“Are you busy?” Mattie asked, gesturing towards a forty-something year old man talking into a pitcher of beer. The bar was almost deserted and anyone present was past caring.

Grantaire shrugged and reached for a cup.

“I think you should pay Lilly-Anne back for the paints for the signs,” Mattie said plainly. The less bullshit the better. She’d been in the Corinthe for ten minutes and already her skin was crawling. She wanted to go home,  _fuck_  her history essay, and crawl into bed.

Grantaire’s face was unmoved.

“I’ll have the money tomorrow,” she said. No sarcastic retort or classical reference. It was shockingly plain.

“Okay.”

“Do you still want water?”

Mattie shook her head. She was starting to feel as though she’d vomit.

“I’ll see you tomorrow then. I’m sorry I fucked up.”

Hearing Grantaire apologize in a plaintive whisper made Mattie’s stomach flop.

“Yeah…” She managed to whisper before darting into the street. She was breathing heavily.

 

* * *

 

 

Mattie could hear Emily and Sam come home at eleven. The door opened, slammed shut, and a chorus of laughter entered. Sam was always laughing. It was one of the things Mattie loved about her. Now it rang in her sore head like a gong. Mattie buried her head under her pillow and tried not to listen to Emily’s girlish giggles turn into moans.

She’d fallen into an uneasy doze when the lights turned on. Blinking and swearing, Mattie wavered as she sat up.

“I didn’t know you were in here, I’m so sorry!” Emily cried. Her chestnut hair had partially fallen out of its braid and her usually pale cheeks were flushed.

“It’s fine,” Mattie grumbled, instantly feeling guilty for making Emily feel bad. 

“You’re in bed early. Are you alright?” Emily said, though she already knew the answer. She moved to Mattie’s bedside, her face lined with worry.

“I’m okay,” Mattie lied, knowing full well Emily knew it was lie. Emily could read her like a book. She immediately knew it was a patented Matilda Enjolras migraine from hell and was stroking Mattie’s forehead gently.

“I’m sorry, dear. Do you want me to get you anything? Have you eaten yet?” Emily said softly.

“I’m fine,” Mattie murmured. She knew, logically, that the right thing to do was direct Emily back to her loving girlfriend, but she was so enjoying the feel of Emily’s cool hands against her flushed face.

“Fucking as if. I’ll put on the kettle,” Sam’s voice called from the doorway. Mattie buried her head in her pillow.

“Grab some aspirin from the medicine cabinet too!” Emily called back. She moved to sit next to Mattie on the double bed they had bought when they were too poor to afford separate twins. Perhaps they had the money now, but they were too fond of their shared sleeping arrangement to change.

“Did you have a nice date?” Mattie asked. Emily was rubbing her back and she could feel herself slowly relax. 

“Mmhm. We got burgers and ice cream and fed fries to the pigeons. It was very romantic.”

Mattie smiled imagining her friends enjoying themselves.

“How was Grantaire?”

Fucking Emily. She  _knew._ She always fucking  _knew_.

“It was a disaster. I think she gave me the migraine.”

“I don’t think that’s a medically sound hypothesis,” Emily said gently.

“She’s paying for the paint, so whatever. It’s done.”

“So how was it a disaster?”

Mattie struggled to articulate the pure failure of her mission. She always felt she had done something wrong after interacting with Grantaire and especially earlier that day.

“I don’t know,” Mattie said stubbornly, knowing Emily could probably read more into those three words than most people could into a speech.

Sam stomped in (she didn’t mean to be loud, so Mattie forgave her) carrying an “I’ll be post-feminist in the post-patriarchy” mug in one hand and two white pills in the other. Emily helped Mattie sit up and down the pills with a few sips of tea. Sam suggested she listen to relaxing music but Mattie, who knew her headaches better than she knew her father, demanded quiet and darkness.

Sam, with a small smile and a gentle kiss to Mattie’s forehead, left and turned the lights off after her. Mattie could hear the subdued sounds of  _New Girl_ in the living room. Emily remained and Mattie selfishly let her.

Mattie drifted off to sleep eventually, nestled in Emily’s maternal arms. She dreamt of broken drinking glasses and splattered red paint.

 

* * *

 

 

When Mattie woke up, she felt better, if groggy. She had slept through her Influential American Women class and couldn’t be bothered to care. The professor was an idiot anyway, and she felt too good wrapped up in her comforter to feel guilty. 

Emily was snoring loudly next to her and Mattie saw, with an affectionate smile, that Sam had joined them in the night, one arm looped around Emily’s waist. Mattie, who so often felt alone, felt a huge rush of love for the two women beside her. Emily had fallen asleep with her glasses on and they were crooked on her face. Mattie carefully pried them off and watched as Emily groaned. Her eyelids fluttered open and she smiled.

“Good morning,” Emily whispered, her usually chipper voice hoarse.

“Good morning,” Mattie repeated. Sam muttered something about bayonets in her sleep and rolled over. Emily rolled her eyes and Mattie stifled a laugh.

“I was thinking about you and Grantaire last night,” Emily whispered.

“Oh your date?”

“I was worried about you and I think I figured something out.”

“Oh?”

Emily snuggled into Mattie’s chest.

“Do you remember when your mom died?” Emily said gently. Mattie frowned. Of course she  _remembered_ the single most traumatic event of her life, she just didn’t like reminiscing about it.

“I try not to.”

“You were so upset. It was hard to watch. You stopped eating and going to school. You stopped bathing even. You cut off all of your beautiful hair.” Emily threaded her fingers through Mattie’s regrown golden locks lovingly.

“I got over it,” Mattie said stiffly.

“Of course you did and now you’re so strong because of it. But for six months, you were a mess. I used to wonder what people on the street thought of you then. I bet they thought you were crazy, or even lazy. It was because they couldn’t see what I could, which was how much pain you were in.”

Mattie remembered all too well. Those six months after her fifteenth birthday were a blur of Xanax and staring blankly at her bedroom wall, remembering when her mother had put up the wallpaper.

“What does this have to do with Grantaire?” Mattie said, perhaps more harshly than she intended. Emily took no notice of Mattie’s tone and continued on.

“You look at Grantaire and you see someone lazy, someone wasting their talents. Maybe if you looked at her the way Sam and I saw you after your mom died, you’d see the same thing we saw: someone hurting really badly.”

Emily didn’t lecture; it wasn’t her style. She just sweetly curled her hands through Mattie’s hair and talked about sympathy for Grantaire like it was the most natural thing in the world.

“You’re very smart,” Mattie whispered affectionately.

“I  _was_ the regional spelling bee champion in the fifth grade.”

They lay in silence, listening to Sam murmur French phrases.

“I don’t know why, but I always feel weird about Grantaire. Like, physically,” Mattie found herself admitting. Emily raised her eyebrows.

“Emotional feelings can provoke reactions in the body,” She answered.

“I don’t have any ‘emotional feelings’ for Grantaire,” Mattie muttered into Emily’s hair.

“Then why are you having a physical reaction?” Emily said softly.

Sam woke up with a start from her nightmare, covered in sweat and Emily broke away to comfort her. Mattie slipped off to the shower to give them their privacy.

 

* * *

 

“Are you okay?” Mattie asked Grantaire that night. She didn’t know why she was even talking to Grantaire, since apparently the sight of the other woman literally made her sick. The words just kind of fell out.

They were sitting around Sam’s kitchen table while Sam, Riley and Juliet walked around the neighborhood smoking a joint. Emily was glued to some medical article about ovarian cancer on the couch, leaving Mattie and Grantaire sitting across from each other.

Mattie was sipping a coke, and so was Grantaire, though admittedly Grantaire’s drink contained more rum than soda.

“I’m fine. Why?”

Mattie shrugged.

“I’d thought you’d want to smoke with them.”

This was a legitimate question; Grantaire liked weed more than she liked alcohol, which meant that she  _really_ liked weed. Mattie was curious if this was the start of a self-imposed sobriety (her stomach leaped strangely at the idea) but she was also turning over Emily’s advice in her mind.

“My dad’s been making me get monthly drug tests. He thinks I’m fucking on cocaine again, which is fucking bullshit, but what can you do?” Grantaire said genially, seemingly oblivious to Mattie’s shocked expression. Pot was one thing. Pills were one thing. Juliet’s opium was one thing. _Cocaine?_ This was the stuff of high school drug education, the kind of horror story that comes up in a  _Law and Order_ episode that Mattie scarcely expected to encounter in real life. For all her bravado and independence, she was still rather sheltered.

“You aren’t, are you?” Mattie asked nervously. Grantaire let out a wild, bellowing laugh.

“Don’t worry, princess, I’m not going to overdose and become a casualty of Bush’s war on drugs. Admittedly, that would be good for your campaign, but not for me.”

Mattie felt annoyed.

“I don’t care about any  _campaign,_ I wouldn’t want you to die,” she muttered into her cup.

“That’s so touching.”

Mattie ignored Grantaire, stood up, and walked over to Emily in a huff.

 

* * *

Riley Bahorel was, in laymen’s terms, high as fucking balls. She stretched out on her bedroom floor, running a hand through her mousy bob and giggling. Grantaire sat on the desk chair looking extremely uncomfortable. She had shed her black sundress earlier in the night and was lounging in her underwear.

“I fucked up,” Grantaire said to no one in particular.

“Yeah,” Riley agreed.

Grantaire cleared her throat and pretended to be very interested in the stained carpeting.

“When did you know you were gay?” She whispered in a small voice.

“I was eight. I wanted to kiss fucking Belle from _Beauty and the Beast_ and I thought Prince Charming was a fucking joke,” Riley said through a mouthful of raucous laughter.

“That’s it?”

“I don’t have a sad story. I have a gay uncle. My parents were fine. I shaved my head before high school started and the girls flocked to me like the player I am. The rest is history,” Riley ended her story with a flick of her wrist.

“That’s it?”

Riley propped herself up on an elbow and fixed Grantaire with a withering glare. Her swollen black eye made the expression truly frightening.

“I have been telling you since you were fifteen that all you need to do is say the word and that’s it. You’re out. Fuck what your parents or anyone else says. Just fucking tell _someone_ so it doesn’t eat you up. Like I’ll fucking judge you. You know more about my sex life than some of my partners,” Riley said. Grantaire seemed to shrink under the force of her glare.

“I’m not. I’ve been telling you that since forever. I’m not gay,” Grantaire said.

“So why do you want to do the nasty with Mattie?” Riley asked.

Grantaire’s pasty skin turned cherry red.

“Don’t be gross,” she muttered.

Riley laughed.

“It’s obvious. There’s no shame in it. She’s gorgeous.”

“No. It’s not like that. It’s not like sexual. Not all, at least. I just like… I want to be around her? I think that’s honestly it,” Grantaire cried forcefully. Riley looked impressed at her show of emotion.

“So why are you asking me about coming out?”

Grantaire frowned.

“I can’t get off to my usual porn,” she admitted.

Riley collapsed in hysterical bellows.

“Thinking of our fearless Susan B. Anthony instead?” Riley choked out.

“I would never use Mattie that way! And Susan B. Anthony was actually really racist.”

“Your Elizabeth Cady Stanton then? Your Joan of Arc? Your Eleanor of Aquitaine? Your Deborah Sampson? Your Gloria Steinem? Your Hillary Clinton? Your Arya Stark?” Riley continued.

“I like the Eleanor of Aquitaine comparison the best, but no. I just want to be _around_ Mattie. That’s it. The getting off thing was unrelated,” Grantaire muttered.

Riley sat up and twisted her muscled limbs into a cross-legged position. She looked like a cowgirl guru, her short hair wild, her athletic shorts stained with beer, but her expression calm.

“There’s really only one question then. Do you want to have sex with other women?”

Grantaire ignore Riley’s remark and continued staring at the carpet.

 

* * *

 

“Excuse my French, but Grantaire was an asshole,” Sam said genially over a pitcher of beer she had liberated from the bar underneath her apartment. Mattie frowned and wished, desperately, she was home, getting actual work done. There was still so much to finish before the protest.

“Emily wants me to be sympathetic and she _is_ paying for the paints so I don’t know. Case closed?” Mattie said weakly.

“No way! I mean, it’s nice that she’s making amends and believe me, I love Grantaire. She’s amazing at yoga. She’s the one who told me I’ve been doing the lotus position wrong for years. I’m saying because I know you’re beating yourself up for it, Grantaire was an asshole. Final. Done. Case Closed,” Sam said. She pursed her red lips and and poured herself and Mattie generous cups of beer.

Mattie ignored her ration politely but Sam chugged until there was nothing left but foam. Satisfied, she poured herself more.

“Grantaire is fucked up. I mean, no judgment. I’m fucked up. God, my roommate Marion is _really_ fucked up. The point is, we’re all fucked up. But Grantaire has problems and they’re her own. You can be hard on her, yeah, but that doesn’t excuse fucking up your plans. Don’t blame yourself,” Sam said. She leaned back in her chair and burped loudly.

“So Emily says I shouldn’t blame Grantaire and you say I shouldn’t blame myself. Who do I blame?” Mattie said, fingering the edge of her glass.

“Sometimes there isn’t a towering patriarchal, anti-choice senator to crush. Sometimes things just suck,” Sam said sagely.

“But what do I _do_?” Mattie said,

Sam shrugged.

“I don’t know. You plan your protest. We help keep abortion safe and legal.”

“Grantaire’s clearly suffering.”

“We’ll help her through that. We’ll get her through it like we get through everything else. It’s not your fault though.”

Mattie frowned deeply. Sam absently considered that there would be premature age lines around Mattie’s perfect mouth. If anything, it would look more attractive. Maybe it would age her from sixteen to, like, nineteen.

“I don’t know how I feel about her,” Mattie admitted shyly.

“I don’t know how you feel about her either,” Sam said with a laugh. She was starting to feel very drunk.

“I trusted her.”

“Yeah, but it wasn’t, like, a _personal stab_ at _you_ when she fucked up. You’re working through shit too, I think. We just all need to… hold each other accountable when we fuck up and help each other though the shit,” Sam said. Her eloquence was leaving her as she further imbibed.

“Is that it?” Mattie asked, a tone of petulant frustration creeping into her voice.

“You can’t protest the way the world works, the way people are.”

Mattie leaned back and closed her eyes.

“I feel like I’m on a tightrope and one false step and we fall apart.”

She looked shyly at Sam, clearing expecting to be teased for being overdramatic. Sam just nodded slowly.

“I know. But I think that, maybe, I’m starting to learn something.”

Mattie raised her glass in a silent toast and winced as the bitter liquid hit her tongue.  


End file.
